March 13, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



149 



which, on aa average, shakes about one thousand square miles, 

 there are many that cannot be ascribed to volcanic origin. 



There are many other problems of practical importance that can 

 only be studied from the base-line of a properly equipped observa- 

 tory. These will readily occur to physical students, who are better 

 acquainted with the subject than I am. I can only express the 

 hope that the improved circumstances of the colony will soon 

 permit some steps to be taken. Already la this city, I understand, 

 some funds have been subscribed. As an educational institution, 

 to give practical application to our students in physical science, 

 geodesy, and navigation, it would clearly have a specific value 

 that would greatly benefit the colony. 



Another great branch of physical science, chemistry, should be 

 of intense interest to colonists in a new country. Much useful 

 work has been done, though not by many workers. The chief 

 application of this science has been naturally to promote the de- 

 velopment of mineral wealth, to assist agriculture, and for the 

 regulation of mercantile contracts. I cannot refrain from men- 

 tioning the name of William Skey, analyst to the Geological Sur- 

 vey, as the chemist whose researches during the last twenty-eight 

 years have far surpassed any other in New Zealand. Outside his 

 laborious official duties, he has found time to make about sixty 

 original contributions to chemical science: such as his investiga- 

 tion into the electrical properties of metallic sulphides; the dis- 

 covery of the fero-nickel alloy awaruite in the ultra-basic rocks of 

 West Otago, which is highly interesting, as it is the first recogni- 

 tion of this meteoric-like iron as native to our planet; the discovery 

 that the hydrocarbon in torbasio and the gas shales is chemically, 

 and not merely mechanically, combined with the clay base; and 

 his discovery of a remarkable color-test for the presence of mag- 

 nesia and the isolation of the poisonous principle in many of our 

 native shrubs. His recent discovery, that the fatty oils treated 

 with aniline form alkaloids, also hints at an important new de- 

 parture in organic chemistry. His suggestion of the hot air blow- 

 pipe, and of the application of cyanide of potassium to the saving 

 of gold, and many other practical applications of his chemical 

 knowledge, are distinguished services to science, of which New 

 Zealand should be proud. 



In connection with the subject of chemistry, there is a point of 

 vast importance to the future of the pastoral and agricultural in- 

 terests of New Zealand, to which attention was directed some years 

 ago by Mr. Pond of Auckland ; that is, the rapid deterioration 

 which the soil must be undergoing by the steady export of the 

 constituents on which plant and animal life must depend for nour- 

 ishment. He calculated that in 1883 the intrinsic value of the 

 fixed nitrogen and phosphoric acid and potash sent out annually 

 was £593,000, taking into account the wool and wheat alone. Now 

 that we have to add to that the exported carcasses of beef and 

 mutton, bones and all, the annual loss must be immensely greater. 

 The proper cure would, of course, be to bring back return cargoes 

 of artificial manure, but even then its application to most of our 

 pastoral lands would be out of the question. I sincerely hope that 

 the problem will be taken in hand by the Agricultural College at 

 Lincoln as a matter deserving of practical study and investiga- 

 tion. 



I have already j-eferred to several great generalizations which 

 have exercised a powerful influence in advancing science during the 

 period I marked out for review; but so far as influencing the 

 general current of thought, and almost entirely revolutionizing 

 the prevalent notions of scientific workers in every department of 

 knowledge, the most potent factor of the period has been the 

 establishment of what has been termed " the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion." The simple conception of the relation of all created things 

 by the bond of continuous inheritance has given life to the dead 

 bones of an accumulated mass of observed facts, each valuable in 

 itself, but as a whole breaking down by its own weight. Before 

 this master-key was provided by the lucid instruction of Darwin 

 and Wallace, it was beyond the power of the human mind to 

 grasp and use in biological research the great wealth of minute 

 anatomical and physiological details The previous ideas of the 

 independent creation of each species of animal and plant in a little 

 Garden of Eden of its own must appear puerile and absurd to the 

 young naturalists of the present day ; but in my own college days 



to have expressed any doubt on the subject would have involved 

 a sure and certain pluck from the examiner. I remember well 

 that I first obtained a copy of Darwin's "Origin of Species" in 

 San Francisco, when on my way home from a three-years' sojourn 

 among the red Indians in the Rocky Mountains. Having heard 

 nothing of the controversies, I received the teaching with enthu- 

 siasm, and felt very much surprised, on returning to my alma 

 mater, to find that I was treated as a heretic and a backslider. 

 Nowadays it is difficult to realize what all the fuss and fierce 

 controversy was about; and the rising school of naturalists have 

 much cause for congratulation that they can start fair on a well- 

 assured logical basis of thought, and steer clear of the many 

 complicated and purely ideal systems which were formerly in 

 vogue for explaining the intentions of the Creator, and for tor- 

 turing the unfortunate students. The doctrine of evolution was 

 the simple-minded acceptance of the invariability of cause and 

 effect in the organic world, as in the inorganic; and to understand 

 his subject in any branch of natural science, the learner has now 

 only to apply himself to trace in minutest detail the successive 

 steps in the development of the phenomena he desires to study. 



With energetic leaders educated in such views, and who, after 

 their arrival in the colony, felt less controversial restraint, it is 

 not wonderful that natui-al history, and especially biology, should 

 have attracted so many ardent workers, and that the results 

 should have b^en so good. A rough test may be applied by com- 

 paring the number of species of animals and plants which had 

 been described before the foundation of the colony, and those up 

 to the present time. In 1840 Dr. Gray's list in Deiffenbach's work 

 gives the number of described species of animals as 594. The 

 number now recognized and described is 5,498. The number of 

 Mammalia has been doubled through the more accurate study of 

 our seals, whales, and dolphins. Then the list of birds has been 

 increased from 84 to 195, chiefly through the exertions of Sir 

 Walter BuUer, whose great standard work on our avifauna has 

 gained credit and renown for the whole colony. The number of fishes 

 and Mollusca has been much more than trebled, almost wholly by 

 the indefatigable work of our secretary, Professor Button. But 

 the greatest increase is in the group which Dr. Gray placed as 

 Annulosa, which, chiefly through the discovery of new forms of 

 insect-life, has risen from 156 in 1840, to '4,295, of which 3,000 

 are new beetles described by Capt. Broun of Auckland. 



When we turn to botany, we find that Deiffenbach, who ap- 

 pears to have carefully collected all the references to date in 1840, 

 states that the flora comprised 633 plants of all kinds, and, as I 

 have already mentioned, did not expect that many more would 

 be found. But by the time of the publication of Hooker's " Flora 

 of New Zealand " (1863), a work which has been of inestimable 

 value to our colonists, we find the number of indigenous plants de- 

 scribed had been increased to 2,456. Armed with the invaluable 

 guidance afforded by Hooker's '• Handbook," our colonial bota- 

 nists have renewed the search, and have since theu discovered 

 1,469 new species, so that our plant census at the present date 

 gives a total of 3,355 species. 



It would be impossible to make mention of all who have con- 

 tributed to this result as collectors, and hardly even to indicate 

 more than a few of those to whom science is indebted for the de- 

 scription of the plants. The literature of our post-Hookerian 

 botany is scattered about in scientific periodical literature ; and, 

 as Hooker's " Handbook " is now quite out of print, it is obvious 

 that, as the new discoveries constitute more than one- third of the 

 total flora, it is most important that our young botanists should 

 be fully equipped with all that has been ascertained by those who 

 have preceded them. I am glad to be able to announce that such 

 a work, in the form of a new edition of the "Handbook of the 

 Flora of New Zealand," approved by Sir Joseph Hooker, is now 

 in an advanced state of preparation by Professor Thomas Kirk, 

 who has already distinguished himself as the author of our 

 "Forest Flora" Mr. Kirk's long experience as a systematic 

 botanist, and his personal knowledge of the flora of every part of 

 the colony, acquired during the exercise of his duties as conserva- 

 tor of forests, point to him as the fitting man to undertake the 

 task. 



But quite apart from the work of increasing the local collections 



